If packaging is something
which ought not to exist at all, why does it exist in the first place? Why, for
example, does the most ubiquitous form of packaging – expanded polystyrene
food-service containers (seen in too many places along the roadside not because
it exists, but because some people are too lazy to dispose of it properly) –
exist in the market at all? Moreover, if states and/or cities mandate source
reduction through bans or taxes (as advocated by the Environmental Defense Fund
and current legislative proposals in the Michigan State Legislature) on certain
types of packaging materials, what will take the place of what has been banned?

Packaging exists for
health, safety, and convenience reasons. Which is to say, given sellers' needs
to both protect and sell their product, packaging exists for economic reasons.
(Packaging a product so as to reduce, if not totally eliminate, the kind of
tampering which caused so many problems with Tylenol capsules several years ago
is as much an economic reason for packaging as is packaging designed to attractconsumer attention.)

Moreover, the particular type of packaging any given firm will elect to employ
will, given technology and marketing requirements, depend on the relative price
of one type of packaging compared to another. Grocery stores which encourage
their customers to accept bagged groceries in plastic rather than paper bags do
so for one simple reason: plastic bags are not only as much as 80 percent less
costly to the grocery owner than paper bags, they take up far less storage
space. (Space which does not have to be used for bag storage can be used for
selling space.) One thousand paper grocery bags will weigh 140 pounds and stand
almost four feet high. The same number of plastic grocery bags will weigh less
than 19 pounds and stand only four inches high. Any waste management plan aimed
at banning one or the other form of packaging should at least begin with some
understanding of why grocery stores seem to have moved from one to the other in
recent years.

What
about health reasons? In 1988 testimony before the Forum On Foam Products and
Plastics held in Providence, Rhode Island, as that state considered action
against plastic food packaging, Nancy J. Sherman reported the findings of a
study conducted by the University of Michigan School of Public Health and the
Michigan Department of Natural Resources. That study found that the level of
microorganisms found in food service permanentware was considerably and
consistently higher than that for plastic disposable ware.
[57]

Moreover, plastic ware has reduced the need for labor – the most scarce and
costly of all economic resources. Disposable ware has eliminated the need for
staff to wash and care for permanentware. Those cost savings have not been
inconsequential.

One
of the main arguments for source reduction, with special emphasis on packaging,
is that source reduction conserves scarce economic resources.

The
relative scarcity of any resource is reflected in the relative price of that
resource. Polystyrene packaging has increased relative to paper packaging in
food-service containers because expanded polystyrene is cheaper than paper. If,
say, expanded polystyrene packaging is cheaper than paper packaging, it can only
mean one thing: the resources consumed in presenting paper packaging to market
are relatively more scarce than the resources absorbed in bringing polystyrene
packaging to market. If that were not true, the price of one material relative
to another would tell no one anything.

McDonald's switched from paper to expanded polystyrene cups and trays ten years
ago due to concern about vanishing forests and paper-mill pollution. Moreover,
switching to plastic saved McDonald's money. By contrast, when Lake Forest
College in Illinois decided – after the college president banned foam-plastic
food service containers in order to avoid what he called "potential ecological
disaster" – the school's food service costs doubled.
[58]

In effect, McDonald's
decision to use plastic containers saved them money and, in their own opinion, a
vital resource (trees) which was far more scarce than the resource used to
produce the material they now use.
[59] Why did Lake Forest College's decision to
reject plastic packaging in their food service programs significantly increase
their costs? Only one reason: the resources absorbed in producing the substitute
material were far more scarce and valuable to society in alternative uses than
the resources used in producing plastics.

Any tax on or outright ban
of one particular packaging material must result in an increase in demand for
some other form of packaging material. Therefore it is not surprising that the
views expressed by all the many elements within the packaging industry, have
been of less-than-one-mind on this issue. Glass packagers tout their wares over
paper. Paper over plastic. Plastic over all the others. The glass people claim
that glass can be recycled while plastic cannot. The paper people make the same
claim while the plastic people counter both and not only press to prove that
plastic can also be recycled, they spend millions of dollars developing new uses
for recycled plastic – money which, in my judgment, ought to have been spent
doing something else. Obviously, given the mounting calls for banning plastic
packaging, the plastics industry probably feels compelled to spend scarce
capital resources in self-defense.

Given that plastic seems to
be one of the more important targets, if not the major target, of proposals for
diminishing the flow of solid waste into landfills through source reduction, two
studies cited by EPA may be of interest to those states and communities seeking
to mandate the abolition of one material or the other. While neither study
examined the impact on consumer product safety or utility of an outright ban on
plastics, they did examine the environmental effects of direct substitution of
other materials for plastics.

Comparing the resources
used, and the environmental releases generated in the production of seven
varieties of plastics products and seven products made of alternative materials
– including paper, aluminum, and steel – the studies concluded that using
plastic products was more favorable for conservation of raw materials and
reduction of environmental emissions than using the competing nonplastic
products in six of the seven categories. In the remaining category (production
of a nine-ounce vending cup from either high-impact expanded polystyrene or
paper), the competing products were roughly equal in resource utilization and
environmental releases.

The authors noted that the
study did not consider any raw materials which aggregated to less than 5 percent
of the finished product, nor did they take account of post-consumer wastes which
could add to energy recovery when burned.
[60] This report, in effect, supports
what the OTA study concluded: before any one material or product is banned, the
environmental impact of substitute materials should be carefully considered.

At base, however, all
elements of the packaging industry agree that the banning of one type of
material simply exchanges one form of waste for another and until the broader
issue of what to do with waste is resolved, ad-hoc measures aimed at one form of
packaging or another will not solve the problem.

Even if all the decisions
made by the packaging industry to use less packaging or packaging which is in
some way made from materials which are more "environmentally friendly" were made
only for self-interest rather than "social" reasons, why would these actions not
be acceptable as a form of source reduction?

Because, as some argue,
what the packaging industry has done is not enough. Reducing the volume of
packaging is inadequate unless the packaging material can be either recycled or
biodegraded. Plastics are considered bad because they don't degrade. Paper
packaging is considered better – if, in fact, packaging cannot be reduced below
some minimum – because it may degrade in landfills, or, if not contaminated by
food waste or contain some types of inks, may be recycled.

Absent the capacity for
recycling or biodegradability, and regardless of the reduction in material
volume per package, outright ban of many forms of packaging has been called for
in several states, especially states in the Northeast where landfill space is
believed to be quite scarce relative to population.

The Coalition of
Northeastern Governors (CONEG) has voted to adopt a source reduction plan for
their states which calls for voluntary (emphasis intended) "preferred"
packaging guidelines short of outright bans. Included in CONEG's proposal was a
call for "minimal packaging accomplished through design changes; lightweight or
single packaging; and different modes of shipping which require less product
packaging. Moreover, plastic packaging composed of recyclable materials that
have no need to be separated prior to introduction into the recycling process
were recommended.
[61]

That the CONEG action was
met by wide support from the plastics packaging industry is, in some respects,
not surprising. One part of the reality of American business in the age of
government intervention is that business will not argue with government when the
consequences of losing the argument might very will be more intervention. That's
not an indictment, that's just the way it is.

Economics Nobel Laureate
John R. Hicks once said that a monopolist desires nothing more than to lead a
quiet life. It's not just the monopolist, it's virtually all business persons.
Therefore, in this writer's opinion, the fact
that some elements of the packaging responded positively to the idea that
"voluntary" rather than mandatory action would be taken against some forms of
packaging should have surprised no one who has been a careful observer of the
way business people respond to the threat of government intervention. Business
support is not by itself an indicator of the economic merit of any given
government market-intervention program.

Voluntary or mandatory, some cities (New York City; Los Angeles; Minneapolis and
St. Paul, Minnesota; Berkeley, California; and Portland, Oregon) have already
begun to entertain or pass ordinances to ban fast-food packaging unless it can
be recycled or is biodegradable. More will be given later on the consequences of
the Portland decision.
[62]

At
the Federal level, legislation has been proposed by Representative George J.
Hochbrueckner, whose district includes the heavily populated and land-scarce
Suffolk County, N.Y., (The Recyclable Materials Science and Technology Act, H.R.
500) to require that non-recyclable materials be biodegradable. After five years
the bill would prohibit materials that are neither biodegradable or recyclable.
(More on Representative Hochbrueckner below.)

The
Environmental Defense Fund has proposed a sales tax or user tax based on the
quantity of packaging in a product and a national sales tax on disposable items
like diapers, razors, and plates.
[63]

What
would be the amount of tax? Who would collect it? Would cash registers need to
be reprogrammed to distinguish a taxable package from a non-taxable package? How
many valuable labor and management resources, which have many alternative uses,
would be absorbed in meeting the requirements of this tax system? Would the
revenues raised be used for environmental purposes or, as has been the case with
such taxes in New Jersey, would the tax revenues simply be used to offset other
taxes?

Both
EPA and OTA in their reports in MSW management warn that such measures are not
without cost. Neither are they certain to attain the end they propose to attain.
Caution is advised – caution which is often not apparent in the rush to propose
and legislate.